My Own Skill Book – Chapter 37
Chapter 37
[Earth Shrink].
It was a skill created when I first tried making a 6-Word Skill, just like [One Flash].
Aside from
“Urk!”
Before I had run far, an intense pain coursed through my body, and simultaneously, [Earth Shrink] was canceled.
The pain was so severe that I couldn’t stand any longer; I dropped Mister and Ms. Hyeri and collapsed facedown on the ground.
“Ugh.”
“Urgh….”
Mister and Ms. Hyeri groaned as well.
Had they gotten motion sickness from moving too fast?
“Oh god, I’m gonna be sick… Huk. This is where we were just now!?”
Unable to lift my head, I was staring at the asphalt when I heard Mister speak.
I barely managed to look around. We were on a ruined road. It was the same way we had come by taxi earlier.
“Haa… Mr. Hwajin, what did you just do?”
“I ran. Quickly.”
My body kept trembling. It was probably because I had run while carrying two people instead of just myself.
I took out my wand and used the [Recovery] skill. The trembling stopped, and strength returned to my body.
I looked at my pants and saw scorch marks. They had probably been made while passing the lava pond.
‘Thank goodness for [Flame Resistance].’
Having regained my energy, I turned my head toward the direction we had come from.
‘No way it’s chasing us here.’
But when I checked behind me, I felt my heart plunge with a thud.
A massive ring made of fire was forming in the sky.
The Flame Dragon slipped out from inside the ring.
As soon as the Flame Dragon emerged, the ring of fire disappeared.
“Don’t tell me it can make its own portal!?”
Mister screamed.
“Damn it.”
A curse slipped out.
‘This is totally cheating.’
There was still plenty of mana left in my bracelet, but there was no point in repeatedly using [Earth Shrink] to flee if that thing kept chasing us.
If the creature that had followed us all the way to the city caused a rampage, the responsibility would fall on us.
‘Guess we have no choice but to fight….’
[The objective is being reset.]
Then a voice rang out.
--------------------
-Objective Set-
[Sub] Eliminate the Enemy
- Defeat the Flame Dragon.
--------------------
I wanted to demand who the hell it was and where it was watching from, but now wasn’t the time.
“Mister, Ms. Hyeri.”
I turned to face the two of them. They nodded their heads.
“Yeah. Let’s give it a shot.”
“It’s reckless for the three of us to charge at a Field Boss……. Still, right now, when there are no other monsters, might be our only chance.”
I was glad they had realized what I was going to say just by looking at my eyes.
‘Though this isn’t the time to be glad.’
The Flame Dragon floated in the sky, glaring down at us.
“Ms. Hyeri, do you happen to know where the Flame Dragon’s core is?”
Ms. Hyeri, who had been buffing us with Strength Enhancement and Mana Recovery Enhancement, darkened her expression.
“I’m sorry. I know Flame Dragons exist, but this is my first time fighting one…….”
The Flame Dragon was now right in front of us.
“Then please ask the Vice Guild Leader while Mister and I keep it busy.”
Mister and I charged at the Flame Dragon.
“Hup!”
Mister leaped into the air first. He barely managed to grab its tail.
“Ah, hot!”
Mister shouted after climbing onto the Flame Dragon’s body.
“Tch! Bisection Slash!”
Perhaps because its opponent was a Field Boss, Mister used a skill right from the start.
‘[Charge]!’
I, too, intended to fight with everything I had immediately.
Using the skill, I jumped up and landed on the Flame Dragon’s body.
‘I definitely won’t be able to stay here long.’
I could feel my HP decreasing just from standing there. If I hadn’t had [Flame Resistance], I would have taken far more damage.
“[One Flash]!”
I aimed at the Flame Dragon’s torso and shouted.
Kwaaang!
Flames scattered in all directions simultaneously with the attack.
However, shortly after, the hole in the Flame Dragon’s body was filled back up with flames.
“Damn it! No matter how much I cut, there’s no end to this!?”
I heard Mister shouting from behind.
‘Damn. True to its name, is the Flame Dragon’s body itself made of fire?’
It seemed I would have to either attack it with different means or find its core and destroy it to take this thing down.
Then the Flame Dragon turned its head toward us and opened its mouth wide.
Flames gathered in its maw.
‘Danger!’
A chill ran down my spine.
“Mister! Dodge!”
I hurled my body downward.
Almost simultaneously, a massive torrent of flames swept over where I had been. Even though I had dodged the flames, my body burned as if it were on fire.
I landed on the ground and summoned the book to check my status.
--------------------
-Status-
Lee Hwajin
HP: 164/200 MP: 28/60
……
--------------------
I hadn’t even been struck by its Breath. I had simply climbed onto the Flame Dragon’s body, hit it once with [One Flash], and gotten away, yet my HP had dropped sharply.
The asphalt road swept by its Breath was bubbling and boiling.
That was when a thought flashed through my head.
I flipped through the book’s pages and wrote down words.
‘Flame, Wand, Extinguish, Fast, Fast, Fast.’
When I paid 1,200 Exp, a skill was created.
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Created Skill: [Suppression (鎭火)] (Rare)
Tool Used: Wand
Mana Consumption: 30(35-5)p
Description: Suppresses flames in an instant.
--------------------
I aimed my wand at the Flame Dragon.
“Suppression!”
As mana drained from my body, the massive Flame Dragon froze.
Shhhiiik.
The raging flames on the Flame Dragon’s body subsided and soon vanished.
With the fire extinguished, the Flame Dragon’s body was revealed to look like a gigantic brown earthworm.
A red gem-like object was visible on the torso near its head. That was clearly its core.
‘Alright! Now if we attack….’
[Ohikon!]
But along with the Flame Dragon’s roar, an enormous blaze erupted, and flames rekindled on its body.
The Flame Dragon glared at me and opened its mouth toward me.
An enormous mass of flames flew at me.
“Suppression!”
I used the skill once more, recharging mana through my bracelet.
The incoming flames vanished cleanly.
“Ooh! Hwajin! Amazing!”
I heard Mister shouting from over there.
‘Great. As long as I have the [Suppression] skill, I can handle the Breath and the Flame Dragon’s flames.’
I held a wand in one hand and a spear in the other. It was the moment I was about to attempt a counterattack.
The Flame Dragon opened its mouth again.
I prepared [Suppression] to match the timing, but what flew at me wasn’t Breath.
Something sparkled inside the Flame Dragon’s mouth.
Puk!
A strange sound rang out.
“Hwajin!”
I thought I heard Mister screaming, and then an unimaginable pain shot through my leg.
I checked my leg and nearly screamed.
Everything below the shin of my right leg was gone.
Pain followed the shock.
“AAAAACK!”
The pain was beyond what I could endure.
I could do nothing but scream. It hurt so much I felt like I was going crazy.
[Rahinak]
At the Flame Dragon’s voice, I raised my head. The Flame Dragon was already right above me.
Something sparkled inside the dragon’s mouth once again.
At that moment, I no longer felt any pain.
‘Ah, I’m dying.’
The moment I had that thought, the world slowed down.
A beam of light was flying from the dragon’s mouth.
So that’s what hit me earlier.
The light was slow but unstoppable, flying straight at me.
I tried to use the [Suppression] skill, but my body wouldn’t move, as if completely frozen.
No, I was moving. It’s just that the speed of the incoming light was faster than I could raise my wand.
It was then, when I truly thought I was going to die, that something appeared before my eyes—something terrifyingly crimson.
I realized only belatedly that it was a person.
A woman with her hair tied up in the back was holding a longsword as tall as she was.
‘The aura she radiates is redder than even the Flame Dragon’s….’
The woman who had suddenly appeared swung her sword at the incoming light.
The light split into two.
Phaaang!
With an ear-splitting sound, the flow of time sped up.
Tak!
The moment the woman disappeared from before my eyes, a cloud of dust swept over me.
I had covered my face with my arm, but at the Flame Dragon’s scream, I lowered my hand.
“…….”
I was speechless.
The Flame Dragon’s long body was being sliced into dozens of pieces and falling to the ground.
The woman holding the longsword landed among the Flame Dragon’s pieces.
‘Did she fly to the Flame Dragon and slash it dozens of times in that single instant?’
But even reduced to such a state, the Flame Dragon did not die.
The severed pieces of the Flame Dragon’s corpse squirmed and began sticking to one another.
I quickly surveyed the Flame Dragon’s pieces, then aimed my wand at one of them. It was the part containing the Flame Dragon’s neck.
“Suppression!”
The flames died out, revealing a red gem.
The woman immediately flew toward the piece with the extinguished flames.
The moment she swung her longsword, the massive Flame Dragon’s core split in half.
The flames in the Flame Dragon’s body everywhere went out completely.
After the Flame Dragon’s corpse disappeared, I saw a mass of red light attach itself to the woman.
There was no doubt she had acquired a bound item.
“Urk!”
Suddenly, excruciating pain flooded over me. Blood was gushing from the leg injured by the Flame Dragon’s attack.
Now that I had escaped the crisis of death, the forgotten pain was beginning to return.
I hurriedly used the [Recovery] skill with my wand.
The injury was so severe that my HP hardly rose even when I used [Recovery]. It was a phenomenon that appeared when there was significant loss of body parts.
I used up the bracelet’s mana as much as possible to maintain the [Recovery] skill. My leg was gradually regenerating.
Meanwhile, the woman approached me. Only then could I see her face clearly.
She looked to be in her early twenties. She was expressionless and had a sharp impression overall, but she was beautiful.
While I was looking at her, she was also looking down at me.
As I looked at the woman’s face, I was seized by a strange sensation.
A feeling indescribable in words. Yet it wasn’t the first time I had felt it.
“You. Haven’t we met before?”
I spoke while keeping my wand pressed to my leg.
“In the world of the red sky and the black land.”
The woman gave no answer.
My eyes suddenly went to the woman’s hand.
Perhaps it was the bound item she had just obtained. On her finger was a ring embedded with a bright red gem.
Besides that, on both her hands were four more bracelets and rings radiating an unusual energy.
“By the way, thank you for helping m—…!?”
The moment I tried to offer my thanks, my body stiffened.
The woman pointed the tip of her longsword at my throat.
“Hwajin!”
“Mr. Hwajin!”
Mister and Ms. Hyeri were running this way.
“Don’t come any closer. If you do, this man dies.”
The woman spoke to the two of them.
Mister and Ms. Hyeri couldn’t move. This was a woman who had sliced the Flame Dragon into pieces by herself. They seemed to judge that it would be irreversible if they acted rashly and something went wrong.
The woman turned her head toward me.
“You have a bound item, don’t you?”
I hesitated for a moment and asked, pretending not to know.
“A bound item?”
“Don’t play dumb, Listener.”
I was shocked by the word that came from the woman’s mouth.
I had heard that word before.
‘Listener registration is complete.’
It was what I had heard immediately after dying and coming back to life at the Praying Mantis of Jang Soyu.
After that, I had been able to confirm that my skill had changed from [Record] to [Edit].
“Just who are you…?”
“I asked first.”
The woman pushed the tip of her longsword even closer to my throat.
“Forfeit ownership of the bound item and hand it over to me. Then I’ll let you live.”